My life in London (and its environs). "Delusional if rather sweet" – Samira Ahmed

Before the rise of the internet, which may either free or destroy us all (jury’s still out), Saturday afternoon was a time to be spent in the local record shop. It would be filled with like-minded individuals, who would ignore you, and staff who could offer you advice on your purchases, who would also ignore you. This was how it should be.

But now people prefer to buy / steal their music on the internet. Most people have adapted to this fairly well, because they’re quite together, and know what they like, and also the internet doesn’t make their brain melt. But I still like to go into record shops, have a look around, laugh at record covers (remember those?), and buy the occasional thing, in order to perpetuate the glory of capitalism.

I’m very lucky, then, that I live near not one but TWO record shops. One of them is quite scary-looking, and I’ll blog about it if and when I’ve built up the courage to go inside.

The other is flashback records. Presumably named after the seminal early nineties Amiga computer game (about a guy who’s lost his mind and jumps around a dystopian cyber world, fittingly enough) of the same name, Flashback is a throwback to the glory days of proper record shops. It’s stuffed with great things: records, CDs, flyers for fun things, indifferent staff.

Outside is a great selection of cheap (and, often, damaged) vinyl. Here are the crappest covers I could find:

The Lydia Taylor Band cover features a cautionary tale. The robot man is thinking: “Why did I build her with laser eyes! That was always going to come back to haunt me. Still happy with the metal tits, though, even though I’ve just been shot.” Probably.

Terrifying record cover #2 is from the Bollywood section. You can’t see it very well in this picture, but the singer’s face is melting; it’s made perfectly clear that the clown puppet is responsible for this. It’s the fucked up reverse clown puppet voodo effect: a very popular subject for 60s Bollywood songs.

And finally: magnum. Not really sure what’s going on here, but I have an idea the music contained within might well BLOW YOUR FUCKING MIND. Or be shit. But mind-blowingly shit. If only I’d been brave and spent the 99p it would have taken to find out.

Instead, I spent my hard-earned cash on the indimitable, the ineffable, the indominatable, the inevitable George Formby.